


know

by schuylering



Series: gravity i never learned [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 00:38:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5476511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schuylering/pseuds/schuylering
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Alex has somehow become a whole different person while John wasn't looking, made a life for himself here. He wants to blame Eliza for that, he does, but he knows she didn't mean to be the reason there's no place for him in Alex's life anymore.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	know

**Author's Note:**

> \- i feel like i may have given the mistaken impression that the series would be written in chronological order, and that is. . .not true. i apologize in advance for any headaches this causes, and hit me up on [tumblr](http://schuylering.tumblr.com/) if you have any questions about timeline/context/etc.  
> \- new fics in the series with be numbered in chronological order--so, because this fic takes place before either of the other two, it's now listed as the first work in the series, and so on and so forth.  
> \- context for this one: alexander grew up in puerto rico and left by joining the army (puerto ricans can in fact serve in the u.s. armed forces, hashtag the more you know), then used the g.i. bill to go to college. he and laurens met in the army and started a relationship, which stopped once alex went to college and laurens stayed in the army. laurens is back now; he was staying with his family in south carolina, which was going about as well as you'd expect, and alex offered to let him stay with him and eliza for a little while to help him get back on his feet.  
> \- cool? cool.

The airport is crowded and cavernous, constant announcements crackling through the loudspeakers. They weave through the people and luggage carts until they find the gate John said he'd be at.

Alex bounces a little on the balls of his feet, double-checking his email that this is really the right place to wait. Eliza puts her hand on his arm to try and keep him still, and he shoots her a distracted smile.

"I'm going to get coffee," Eliza tells him. "Do you want any?"

He shakes his head absentmindedly, not looking away from the gate. It's probably the first time he's turned down coffee in his life, she thinks; she's not sure he actually heard her at all.

She leisurely makes her way to a Starbucks she'd seen on the way in; she passes a few other coffee places on her way, but doesn't stop. She doesn't want to hover, she tells herself, when Alex and John reunite; a back corner of her mind wonders if she just doesn't want to feel unwelcome.

She tries to take as long as reasonably possible, but it must not be long enough, because when she gets back to the gate and tries to find Alexander in the crowd she sees him walking purposefully forward, without a sideways glance. After a moment she sees the man he's going to, who's walking toward Alex with the same kind of determination. He's not wearing a uniform, just a t-shirt and jeans, and his hair is tied back from his face. He's carrying a duffel and a backpack, both of which he drops without a thought as he and Alex reach each other.

There's no awkwardness, no hesitancy she would expect from two people who haven't seen each other in so long. Instead they've barely reached each other before their arms are around each other, holding fast. From where she'd standing Eliza can see Alex's face, buried in John's shoulder, eyes closed like he wants to forget everything else around him in favor of this one man. John's hand has come up to hold the back of Alex's head, like he's try to get him somehow closer. Eliza feels like she should look away, maybe even wants to look away, but she doesn't.

They finally let go, and they grin at each other. Alexander says something and John grins somehow impossibly wider. She finally looks down, pretends to fuss with the coffee cups. It's only when she sees them pick up the discarded bags and make their way to the side of the room, out of the way, that she goes over to them.

"Eliza," Alexander exclaims when he sees her. "Hey, come over here. Eliza, John. John, my wife, Eliza."

"Hey," John says, smiling at her and shaking her hand. He's beautiful, she thinks, wide-set earnest eyes and freckles covering his face.

"Hi," she says. "Good to finally meet you. I've heard so much."

She's not sure if she's imagining it or if his smile slips slightly at that; for a moment he looks worried, even scared, before he's smiling full force again. "Don't listen to a word he says," he tells her. "All lies."

She laughs and Alex shoves at John, his own smile lighting up his whole face.

"Also, hey," John says to them, "congratulations. I'm only what, six months late?

"Five and a half," Eliza says with a smile. "You're doing fine."

"Yeah, well," he says. "Sorry I couldn't make the wedding."

"You had a good excuse," Alex points out.

"Besides," Eliza says, "I only have two sisters. If Alex had had another groomsman I would've had to find another bridesmaid, so really," she shrugs, "you just made my life easier."

John laughs, looking like he's surprised himself. "Good to know."

He has a good laugh, she thinks, as they make sure he has all his things and starting making their way to the exit. Alex keeps glancing at John and grinning like he can't help himself: his sheer delight at having John Laurens back in his life is palpable, so obvious she finds herself accepting rather than resenting it. 

They start shouldering back through the crowds, and she watches them, wondering.

*

John follows Alex and Eliza through the maze of the airport; Alex is talking faster than John had thought possible before he knew Alex himself, and every once in a while Eliza shoots him a fond, amused look. John can't help but like her already, which he's sort of surprised about: he'd expected to resent her no matter who she was, too aware of his own tendency toward rash emotional reactions.

Alex is grinning as he talks, eyes bright, and John is drawn into his orbit just as surely as he's always been. It feels like a knot's been untied in his chest: he breathes easier around Alex, and he's pretty sure that should worry him.

"—anyway, I think the car is this way," Alex is saying, waving his hand. He turns to Eliza. "The car was the way, yeah?"

"You have a car?" John asks. "You live in New York, man."

"It's Eliza's car," Alex explains, as they approach a silver Volvo. The idea of Alex even riding in this car is pretty funny to John, at least for a moment. Mostly, it just drives home how different he is now, how in two years he's built a whole life for himself that John knows nothing about. That John only has the barest of toeholds in, built mostly from a shared history, nothing about a shared future.

"She don't let me drive," Alex is saying now, giving John a _can you believe it?_ kind of look.

"Actually," Eliza counters, "the state of New York won't let you drive."

"Hey," Alex says, "it's bullshit I can't pass that test. I drove Humvees for years, and there ain't even any roads over there."

"Or traffic laws to violate," John comments.

Alex glares at him; Eliza looks like she's trying not to laugh. 

Eliza insists John take shotgun, so Alex ends up in the backseat, leaning forward with his elbows on the seat back between them. When John turns his head he's alarmingly close, his arm brushing John's shoulder as Alex reaches forward to adjust the radio, almost as soon as Eliza's flipped the ignition.

John leans back, listening to Alex and Eliza mock-argue over the music, and smiles a little.

*

They go out to dinner, a nice Italian place with a wine list. It's surprisingly easy, to just eat and listen to Alex's stories, with occasional interruptions from Eliza. They don't make him talk about himself, and he's thankful.

When they get back to the apartment it's late; Eliza excuses herself to call one of her sisters, who's apparently in France right now and battling the time difference. "It's good to have you," she tells John, smiling at him. John finds himself smiling back.

Once it's just the two of them they make their way to the kitchen; John sits down at the table, almost gingerly, not really at home.

"Wanna beer?" Alex asks, and John nods. Alex gets two bottles from the fridge and pops their caps off on the edge of the counter, a trick John had taught him.

It's quiet for a minute or two, both of them sipping their drinks, John allowing himself to relax, maybe, a little.

"You okay?" Alex asks him finally. He sounds serious the way he almost always does, sincere. Still, John knows he could say, _yeah_ , and Alex would leave it at that, despite the obvious lie.

"I shouldn'ta come here," John says after a moment. Alex opens his mouth to protest, but John shakes his head. "You know Ellie's living with my parents?" Alex shakes his head. "Yeah, she and Martha moved into one of the guest rooms." He laughs a little, dry and humorless, and rubs at his temples. "Shit."

"How's she doin?" Alex asks. He only knows Ellie from the pictures John used to show off in the service, but John knows he's gotten attached.

"Good, she's," John rubs at his temples again, "she's good. She's great. She's growing like a weed, you know that?" Alex grins. "But it's like—I don't even know her, you know. She don't even know me."

"But you can," Alex says. "Now."

"You mean, now that I've run away to New York?" John smiles, wry. 

"You gotta get away from your parents, man," Alex says, quiet and serious. "And if she's livin with them—"

"So I leave her with them, is that it?" John asks, sharper than he means to. 

"No," Alex says, just as sharp, and maybe John deserves that. "I'm sayin, you ain't gonna be any good to her if you're too wrapped up in this shit with your parents to think about anything else." 

John glances at him, the way his eyes have gone sharp and fierce. He only knows snippets of Alex's childhood, mostly what he's let slip when drunk or scared, vulnerable. He knows he can't handle suicide, though, any mention of it; it's occurred to John before that that might've been what happened to one of his parents, and suddenly his words cut deeper, probably deeper than Alex intended them to.

"Yeah," he says finally. "I know. I just—everything's so shitty right now," he admits, quiet, tearing at the beer label with him thumbnail. 

"Hey, look," Alex says, leaning forward. He curls his fingers around John's wrist like he doesn't even know he's doing it. "Things are gonna get better. You're here, now. We're gonna make things better for you."

John looks up at him, his wide earnest eyes, and he believes him: he'll believe anything Alex tells him but only because Alex has never lied, wears his heart on his sleeve and tripping off his tongue. So he says, "Yeah. Okay," voice smaller than he meant it to be.

Before he understands what's happening Alex is pulling him toward him, wrapping his arms around him. John lets himself lean into it even though his self-preservation instincts are telling him to pull back, knows that once he starts touching Alex he'll want more and more and more that he can't have now because Alex is married, fuck, _married_. 

But instead of thinking about any of that John closes his eyes, presses his face to the crook of Alex's neck. He knows he needs to let go, but in the meantime he lets himself hold Alex tighter, lets himself lose himself in this for just a few moments.

*

It's barely light when John gets out of bed, tired of trying to both sleep and stay awake at the same time; he needs to sleep, but the dread of reliving some scene from the last six years keeps him on edge, resisting. 

So he grabs his phone and goes out to the kitchen, sitting down at the table. He thinks of making himself coffee but doesn't want to go through the mechanics of it, still feeling like a trespasser in this house even after two weeks. Instead he just sits, thumbing through texts and emails. 

It isn't long before he hears someone moving around, going from Alex and Eliza's room to the bathroom. It's Eliza, he knows: she's been sick every morning for days now, early enough that Alex has still been asleep, so John's pretty sure he doesn't suspect a thing.

A little while later, Eliza walks into the kitchen. She looks pale, and a little surprised to see him.

"Morning," John says.

"Morning," she replies. She gets a sleeve of saltines from the cabinet, then eases herself into the chair across from her and starts to nibble at one.

"You told him yet?" John asks, glancing up at her. 

"Sorry?" she asks.

"The baby," he says. She looks a little surprised; he says, "I ain't sayin I was a great soon-to-be dad or anything, but I do remember—" he gestures to the crackers "—that part of it."

"Ah." She looks down, breaking the corner off a cracker. "Not yet. I have a doctor's appointment after work tomorrow, just to make sure, but." She shrugs. She's started to smile, seemingly despite herself; her whole face lights up, eyes warm and wide. "You're the first to know, I guess."

"Congrats," he says, and it hurts less than he thought it would. 

"Thanks." They sit quietly for a few minutes, the clock and the wall ticking softly. "You know," Eliza says, "I've never seen a picture of your daughter." She looks at him, always so earnest. "Could I?"

He nods, reaching for his phone. He doesn't have many pictures on it yet; he's used to having just the one, spiderwebbed with white creases, tucked in the chest pocket of his uniform. 

He pulls one up of Ellie with her sixth birthday cake that Martha had emailed him when he was still in Iraq, and slides his phone across the table.

Eliza looks down at the picture, and smiles. "Ellie, right?" she says.

"Yeah," he says, "Frances Eleanor, actually."

"She's adorable," Eliza tells him, taking a last look at the picture and handing it back.

"Yeah," John agrees, smiling a little himself. He pauses, then says, "I'm going back. To her, to South Carolina. You guys have been great, and I really—you know, thanks, for lettin me stay here and everything. But I gotta go back."

She's looking at him with an understanding, almost sad look; it stops short of being pitying, though, for which he's grateful. "Why don't you have her come here?" she suggests. "Even just for a visit."

He shakes his head. "I can't—I don't even have my own place, I don't have anywhere for her to stay. No way her mom's gonna be okay with bringing her up here."

"You could get someplace," Eliza says. "My family pretty much has the art of finding New York apartments down, I could help."

She says it so plainly, makes it sound so simple. The heavy mix of dread and guilt leading him back to South Carolina seems to lighten for just a moment, before he makes himself shake his head again. "It ain't that easy."

"Why not?" she asks, not as a challenge, but like she genuinely wants to know. Why not?

"It just ain't," he says, sharper than he means to. He feels an irrational flare of irritation at Eliza, with her understanding eyes and warm smile and the way she's always sweet and calm and caring. With her baby and this perfect apartment and the way Alex looks at her like she's his whole damn world. He tries to swallow it back, knowing she doesn't deserve it, but it's fucking hard, staying here and seeing how happy they are, how perfect Eliza is for him. Alex has somehow become a whole different person while John wasn't looking, made a life for himself here. He wants to blame Eliza for that, he does, but he knows she didn't mean to be the reason there's no place for him in Alex's life anymore.

"You know," Eliza says, "Alex would love it if you stayed."

"Low blow," he says before thinking. 

She grins, eyes almost mischievous. "Yeah, but did it work?"

He just rolls his eyes, but he lets the wave of irritation subside. "Alex don't know what he wants," he says, not quite what he means.

Eliza just looks at him. "I've never found that to be true."

For this, it is, he wants to say. Alex won't want John around when he has a kid, while he and Eliza are building a family together. Instead, he just shrugs. 

They sit in silence for a few minutes, more comfortable than John would've thought possible, given all the givens. Eliza glances at him, but he looks down at the kitchen table, at the oddities in the wood smoothed and covered in clear varnish.

"You love him a lot, don't you?" Eliza asks him after a few minutes. 

Something in her tone makes John's stomach freeze over: _she knows_ , is suddenly all he can think. She knows. "I mean," he says, stalling. His throat feels like it's caving in on itself, but the voice coming out of his mouth is normal, thank God. "You know. Being over there together—"

"I know, John," she says, kindly. "About you and Alex. He told me."

He just stares for a moment. "Oh," is all he can think of to say. His mind rapidly begins spiraling, looking at the past three weeks at a new angle. She'd known and she'd still said just minutes ago, _Alex would love it if you stayed_. He doesn't understand it.

He can feel her eyes on him, watching him closely. "I'm sorry," she says, "I didn't mean to—"

He shakes his head. "No," he says. "Just, uh. Not a lot of people know."

She nods, seeming to understand what he's trying not to say. 

He's saved from trying to think of some way to get out of this situation by Alex, appearing in the kitchen doorway. He squints at both of them; he still looks mostly asleep. 

"Morning," Eliza tells him. 

"Morning," he mumbles back, and walks over to kiss her forehead. "What're either of you doin awake?"

Eliza just smiles at him; John shrugs. They glance at each other conspiratorially when Alex mumbles, "Okay," and turns away to make coffee, a silent agreement to keep everything they talked about between themselves.

It feels strangely—good, John thinks. He likes Eliza, which he'd known before, but now he feels like he knows her better, has in the last half hour gained at least some claim to calling her a friend. He hasn't had a friend outside the army since he was in high school, he's pretty sure; it feels good. He feels good.

He watches Alex blindly start the coffeemaker, watches Eliza watching him fondly, and thinks this is the best he's felt in a while.

*

Eliza sits back against the headboard, sighing. She rests her hand on her stomach in a gesture that had become automatic even before there was anything out of the ordinary; now, three months in, she can feel an actual bump under her palm.

"I think he likes it," Alexander says, taking off his coat and hanging it over the back of a chair.

She nods. "I do, too. He seemed happy." She smiles, content and a little sleepy, though she doesn't know why; both Alex and John had refused to let her help move anything into John's new apartment, from the couch to a table lamp. 

"Yeah," Alex says, grinning. He'd been ecstatic that John had decided to stay in the city, and was no less so after a day of moving furniture up the stairs of a third-floor walk-up. Eliza smiles back.

The room is quiet for a few minutes, as Alex checks his email and she texts Angelica. After she hits send she sets her phone down, watching Alex frown slightly in concentrating as he replies to someone. She thinks she's going to do it, what she's been thinking through for months now. Today had been so good, the three of them laughing and joking, comfortable with each other. She thinks this could work, crazy as it sounds. She has an odd kind of faith.

"Do you love John?" she asks after a few minutes, watching Alex softly.

"Course," Alex says, looking up from his email. "He's one of my best friends."

"I know," she says. "I meant, are you still in love with him?"

Alex stops, looks over at her. "No," he says, after the slightest of pauses. "Of course not." He sits down on the edge of the bed next to her, takes her hand like she needs reassuring. "I love you."

"I know," she says, just as confident in that as she's always been. "I'm asking if you love him, too."

He just stares at her, so she continues on, "He's still in love with you. I can see it." She wonders how he can't see it, honestly: the way John looks at him is deep, intense, too much to be ignored.

"Well—"

She doesn't let him get started. "I'm not accusing you of anything, Alexander. I just want to know."

He still has her hand in his, and he looks bewildered as he says, "I don't know what you want me to say."

"I want you to tell the truth," she says, seriously. "I know you love me. I've always known it, Alexander, and I'm not asking you to prove it to me."

"I'd never leave you," he tells her. "Never."

"And I'll never leave you," she replies. "I'm just—wondering, if. . ." She trails off. She's been confident in the theoreticals of it, the emotions, but honestly she's not quite sure how to say what she wants to.

"What are you saying?" Alex asks. "You—what, a threesome?" He doesn't seem embarrassed, just confused.

She laughs a little. "No. I don't particularly want to sleep with him, and I'm guessing he doesn't have any particular desire for me, either." She pauses, wondering if she's going to be able to get this out. "I'm saying. . .if you both—and if you still, um, if you're still in love with each other and you still want to sleep together than that's fine, with me."

She can't quite hold his gaze for the speech itself, but once she finishes she risks glancing up at him. He's staring at her, dumbfounded: she wonders fleetingly if she's actually rendered him speechless, and feels oddly proud.

"Eliza?" he says, once he seems to be able to speak again. He doesn't manage to get any further.

She takes a breath. "There would be rules," she says, feelingly slightly more comfortable again now that she can talk about plans, concrete things. "I'd have to know that it was happening. You couldn't do anything that would make anyone talk, because this is never ever something I want to have to explain on national TV."

"National TV?" he repeats, smiling a little.

"When you run the government," she says simply, and they both laugh, unexpectedly, at the old joke. "But I'm serious," she says. "If you want it, the option's there."

"But—why?" Alexander asks, and his eyes have gone oddly vulnerable.

She gives a small shrug. "You seem happy with him," she tells him, "and he seems happy with you. And if I can give you that happiness without giving you up, without anything bad happening to us or to me, why shouldn't I?"

"You don't know nothing bad won't happen," he says. "Listen, I've done this before—open relationships, and everything, and it can get—messy."

"I know, it could," she says. "And if it does we'll have to rethink it, but—it's not like you're cheating on me. It's just one person, and I'll know about it. And if it's weirder to me in reality than it is in my head, I promise I'll tell you, and we'll figure something out."

"You," he says seriously, "are full of surprises."

She smiles at him. "I know."

"Also, the best wife," he says, leaning toward her, "and the best woman."

"You've said."

"Well, it's true." His eyes are serious and dark, and she meets him halfway as he leans in to kiss her.

They break apart; he rests their foreheads together. "I'll talk to John," he says after a moment.

"Okay."

"And you'll tell me if it's weird."

"Yes."

"Okay." 

He kisses her again, sure. She kisses him back, and she feels just as sure.

**Author's Note:**

> on tumblr at schuylering


End file.
